The Slytherin Diaries
by LaZarus17
Summary: Post-Hogwarts. Multiple-pairing. Drabble. A series of short diary entries made by Slytherins (each chapter acting as a ONE-SHOT). First chapter Pansmione.
1. To Soothe the After-Burn

On the day of her birth, her mother gave her the gift of a beautiful name, Hermione, derived from the Greek God, Hermes. Others began to call her Mione, the full articulation of her first name too arduous on their tongue and to her friends, she shared an even funnier form— Golden Girl. None of these names were the ones I would later whisper in her ear, leaning towards her to reveal secrets only she could hear.

* * *

I had the ice cube in my mouth; to soothe the after-burn. All this while it had been sitting at the bottom of my glass but it was a habit of mine to eat the last vestiges of it after chugging my drink. I looked to Hermione, who was one drink ahead of me and dangled my empty glass in the air. She had thrown a casual comment about how I had been sipping my drink for the last hour. This was my gesture of defeat, a sign that I was to join her on the road to perdition. A shiver ran up my spine. There was still a faint hint of gillywater on my numb tongue. Thank God for the ice, its cold touch in perfect harmony with my warming body.

She giggled at me, a display of her perfect teeth and I knew she had just manipulated me into drinking more than I had intended to tonight. The smile I returned was one of submission. Besides, I couldn't very well say no to her after what Blaise had just put her through. She'd called me over promptly after the fact—and why wouldn't she— I had over the last two years, unexpectedly become her confidante. She acted differently with me than she did with the Gryffindors.

Wilder. Playful.

'What exactly happened?' I asked, the ice fragments crunching between my own pearly white canines.

'He wrote this on a post-it and gave it to me before he left,' Hermione replied handing me the small yellow square. A muggle thing, she had explained, like parchment except it sticks. In an ugly scrawl, there it was - _I could've loved you. _There must be more I thought and flipped it onto its other side. It was blank.

My eyebrows furrowed. 'I don't get it,' I mumbled, turning the note over again as if there was something I wasn't seeing.

'Me neither—I've n-nooooo clue, none whatso-_fucking_-ever. Nada!' she slurred. I pursed my lips to fight back a smile. It was rare to hear her swear. I handed the cursed yellow thing back to her. She grabbed my empty glass and rose off her queen bed. She had a slight alcohol-induced sway to her walk and I watched, through the reflection of her full-length bedroom mirror, as she refilled our glasses, her small hands that weren't necessarily graceful, but still delicate fumbling from lack of care as to whether or not she spilled a little. Her hands moved to pick up the glasses, then a moments hesitation passed over her face and she decided to bring the bottle as well, placing the contents on the floor by her bed.

I sighed as I accepted my fate to a second drink.

'Let me get this straight.' I adjusted my position, getting comfortable. 'He came over to give you a post-it—'

'No,' she interjected. 'No, no, no…' She bunched her huge honey-curled mane into her hands and twisted it into a knot on to the top of her head. The strands splayed out framing her face, one in particular, hanging over her big brown almond eyes, across her freckles; a breathtaking yet disturbing image of youth. I realized her make up had smudged from crying and I wondered if she would reapply it. 'He came over so we could _talk,_' she mocked, her fingers making air-quotes. 'He just sat at my dressing table and at some point, I realized he wasn't even listening to me. I asked him why he bothered to come if he wasn't going to say anything… that's when he gave me the post-it.' She whispered the last part.

I frowned. To look at her was a sad sight, because, see, it's already distressing to watch someone in pain but when a young girl— and not just any girl, a beautiful girl, and not just any kind of beautiful, the truly inexplicable and perpetual kind— when she's sad, well then it's all quite devastating.

And now that I think about it, she had that gaze, my mother used to call it my head-in-the-clouds daze. It's difficult to explain because it's almost as if one is lost in a reverie but whatever the train of thought, its too bleak to be anything one would intentionally daydream about and it's too far from the surface to be quiet contemplation. What she really looked like, and I have to admit, she did, was that she looked like she imagined that not only had he written on the one post-it, but it was almost as if he had written it over and over again on dozens and dozens of post-it's, as if they weren't these small, dispensable squares of sticky paper, but yards of wallpaper, stuck on each and every one of her bedroom walls, there to remind her and remind her, till it killed her.

And yet none of this made me feel sorry for her, not the honest heartfelt sympathy it could've evoked, but perhaps a distant kind of pity, like when you hear bad news but it doesn't directly affect you so you have a hard time arousing your emotions.

I suppose also because, yes she was sad, devastatingly so, but I knew she'd always be wanted. One demure smile and she'd have some other poor sap ripping flower petals, mouthing, _she loves me, she loves me not…_

In fact, wasn't she often texting Marcus Flint, in a manner, of course, that was purely platonic but incredibly soul-baring, a particular code of language that when you express one thing and it translates into so many different things, and then suddenly, as if by happenstance you find yourself wondering if you're in love.

I had been so deep in thought I hadn't even realized my drink was in need of a top-up.

'Pass me the bottle please,' I said. She lifted her eyes, releasing her hands from her hair, letting go of a thousand neon-yellow post-it's.

She really was stunning; blindingly so.

'Sure,' she grinned, happy to see I had finally caught up to her. Her torso stretched to the grab the bottle of gillywater, her top rising revealing her lower back, and then again when I asked for the mixer; it was this odd inelegant dance, one you wouldn't really notice unless you were staring. I made myself another drink; gillywater, a strange muggle refreshment called sprite and a single ice cube. Always a single ice cube.

'So then what happened?' I asked. The question a quiet murmur against the pour of alcohol. The answer a slit-throat cut to the quiet.

'He said he couldn't do it anymore.'

'Do what?'

'Dunno,' she shrugged. 'We weren't even together, not officially.'

'So before you two could even get together… he broke up with you?' I scoffed. Wait, that had come out wrong. 'Screw him!' I amended with a sneer. 'He's a first-class prick.' But even that didn't help because she seemed to have already known that. I suppose everyone did, including me, his friend. I took a big gulp because the truth took a drink, then the drink took a drink and I wondered when the drink was going to take me. I added a titch more gillywater. 'You know what he's doing right?' I asked with a raised eyebrow.

'I never know what he's doing,' she sighed.

'Well, I do! Blaise Zabini loves _Blaise Zabini_. He wrote that just to toy with you. Keep you hooked.'

I must've said the wrong thing because before I knew it she was pasting the yellow square onto her cupboard mirror smackdown next to the photos she had of all her friends; Potter and the Weasley bunch, Longbottom and Luna… photos she had of us… wasn't that really the worst thing to do? And then I realized while saying the wrong thing I must've also said the right thing because she turned around with a smirk on her face and her drink raised in her hand. 'To the end of that,' she declared.

We clinked the glasses together, a happy toast.

'To the trails we blaze,' I added wryly. She smiled and I basked in the pride of my own wittiness. Then she began to laugh and it was infectious like everything else about her.

Two drinks later and we were sprawled out on the wooden floor, holding our stomachs, tears in our eyes and the post-it forgotten.

'Do you,' she guffawed slapping her hand over her face, 'Do you remember the look on his face?' She broke, a maelstrom of mirth, my delight responded to hers, filling the room, lifting it, the way helium lifts a balloon. 'They were petrified!'

'Vince was on the verge of a panic attack and Greg…' I trailed off biting back more hilarity. Closing my eyes, I recalled their frightened expressions and couldn't help but let the memory play. It was a game of pool, the two boys against us.

'A bet is a bet,' she snickered. 'If they lose, they kiss, if we lose, we kiss. They owe us a bloody kiss!'

'His face when he accidentally put the eight-ball in,' I roiled with more laughter. Her eyes twinkled at the memory of our unexpected victory. The boys were twice the pool players we were. It really had been unexpected that they lost.

'Can't believe they talked their way out of it.'

'Slytherins are assholes,' I whispered; and it's weird how when you whisper things it comes out sounding very much like a secret, even when it's not. The comment seemed to pop the balloon we were in and I could feel us floating back down.

I had been quite cruel to her at Hogwarts. All of us had.

'You're so pretty Pansy Parkinson,' she suddenly whispered, poking my nose playfully.

My cheeks turned crimson. It was unfair, this effect she had on people; the way my face warmed, blooming at her approval, how her words held the weight of the world when I let them. And we were already sitting near one another so it wasn't difficult for her to lean forward and kiss me— which she did. Suffice it to say I was surprised, well, not entirely surprised, no, because we've kissed several times before.

This game of kissing had started at Theo's birthday party. After just having finished my drink I had the ice cube in my mouth, as I always do, but then a moment later she had it in hers. We soon found this was a torturous display of affection for the boys and we'd play it like a game off and on. But see, normally when we did those things, we had drowned ourselves in alcohol, so much so that one had to sleep through the next day to safely resurface. And usually, there were boys to make an impression upon, although, I never stopped to think exactly what that impression was.

I broke the kiss, trying to laugh it off. It sounded as nervous as I felt.

'I think I should go home,' I mumbled. 'Ron will be worrying and waiting.' It was a lie but it was also the truth because he would be waiting, just not worrying. Ronald never worried about me. Certainly not with another girl.

As I was leaving I hugged her goodbye. I said, 'Love you, hun.'

She began to pull away; her presence withdrawing.

'Love you,' she said. A hollow echo. And I thought that maybe this was how she wanted to punish me for not kissing her back; to be absent, to repeat the same words so I may find that they are empty.

* * *

The next time I saw Hermione it was the following Monday at the Ministry. I hadn't given much real thought to the sober-ish kiss. Well sure, I had thought about it the way you experience something and then you can't un-experience it but I never let myself wonder what it meant, how it made me feel. Part of me worried she'd be different, that we'd be different but as she entered my office at lunchtime, smiling as she always did, the feeling drifted away, replaced with that warmth she exuded to me, to everyone else.

I think it's funny how even a decade later, a cube of ice reminds me of Hermione and how I'd kiss her, again and again, with my cold wet tongue.


	2. Pavlov-ed (Dramione)

_Dear Diary,_

I know she's scared of the dark, of heights, of snakes and monsters; of me; of most things. Anxiety inherited from your youth, the psychologist once told her, "passed down to you right through your childhood".

She pesters me to see the old git too but I spend an hour wandering Muggle museums instead and _imperius_ him to tell her we're making progress. I hear it often enough from her. Making progress. And I don't know where she's progressing too.

She used to leave the nightlight on during those nights I wasn't there. Then decided the lamp was safer; the light a little brighter. This was before I started sleeping there.

It was a Tuesday and we'd fought. No one likes me and I don't care. She's bitter that she often has to choose. "You could at least try," she cried. But both her worlds can't coincide and "when the bloody hell are you going to finally get that!"

The thought of her makes my blood boil.

I've considered leaving her and all her insecurities. Then I'd thought about my own. My own fear of waking and finding she was gone. I could make it up to her, buy her a red rose and tie her to the bedpost. Ironically, she likes to feel helpless and coerced.

Strange at first, but I've started to enjoy it. The sick thrill of it. I'm only worried that I've learned to love it. I imagine myself breaking into her home and waking her under the midnight moon. One hand on her mouth, the other wrapped around her delicate throat. I revel in all the sordid ways I can hurt her. My mouth itches for that word. _Mudblood_. It's empty, without connotation and means nothing to me, but I holster it like a weapon. I've twisted and bent it into something perverse. I've whispered it against the shell of her ear while making love to her... while she's climaxing and then coming and I don't stop till her body is broken and spent. I say it now and her nipples grow taut. She accuses me of having _Pavlov-ed_ her and I don't have the faintest clue as to what she means.

Wednesday bleeds into Thursday and I'm alone in my own bed. She hasn't owled. She hasn't caved in and I refuse to do without her. I think maybe I should grovel but I can't bring myself to beg. It's late and I still can't sleep. I find myself revisiting the idea of breaking into her house. Then suddenly, I imagine the same opening scene with a different sequence; breaking into her home and finding someone else beside her. Maybe that wanker that she works with. Or that sleaze from the Ministry. Before I know it, I'm already dressed and on my feet, and in one quick swirl I'm at her doorstep. I use the emergency key she keeps hidden. There are some Muggle habits she'll never unlearn. I enter her bedroom to find her bathed in light and fast asleep. There's an open book on her chest. _Amortentia_. I put it away. Undressing, I get under the covers. She startles, then stills. With half-lidded eyes, she caresses my cheek. I pull her in so she's just under my chin.

I reach over her and switch her bedside lamp off. I have dreams like fields to be tilled and she is one of them.

* * *

A/N: I consider this flashfic—fanfic.


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